"Come the Revolution": Employee Involvement in the Workers' State

Description

Editor's Preface: The year is 2007 A.D. A collapse of stock market values has provoked a general demoralization of American society, particularly among employees who had heavily invested their pension assets in equity instruments. A series of work stoppages—beginning first among employees in the remaining unionized sectors of construction and automobile production, and spreading gradually to government offices and finally to the all-important non-union computer and financial services industries—has led to a general strike halting virtually all production and distribution in the country. Managerial confidence has reached an all-time low. At the invitation of their agents in Congress and the White House, the leaders of American finance and commerce assembled in Philadelphia on January 15th to develop a plan for rescuing the country. In desperation, unable to reach consensus after weeks of raucous debate, this assemblage of American Capital—including, among others, the representatives of the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chambers of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation of Independent Business, Labor Policy Association, Securities Industry Association, and Society for Human Resource Management—petitioned the AFL-CIO (whose ranks had been swelled by millions of general striker-recruits) to develop new rules for reconstituting the social order. "G" is a widely-respected, non-aligned intellectual active in the Movement for Progressive Social Change, a consortium of "public interest" and employee-advocate organizations. The AFL-CIO, mindful that there are as many non-members as members in the workforce, has asked G to participate in formulating guiding principles for labor market reform for the up- coming deliberations over a laborist social charter. (A different group has been convened to propose recommendations for capital market reform.) The following colloquy represents some of the initial musings between G and "P". P is a leading tactician for the AFL-CIO, assigned by the Federation to consult with G on this enterprise critical to the success of the workers' state. The Federation wants G's independent views but they also want G to take into account P's (hence, organized labor's) perspective.

Source Publication

Employee Representation in the Emerging Workplace: Alternatives/Supplements to Collective Bargaining: Proceedings of New York University 50th Annual Conference on Labor

Source Editors/Authors

Samuel Estreicher

Publication Date

1998

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